[NEWS] - Maxtor ships Serial Attach SCSI Atlas 15K II.

[CougTek]

MILPITAS, Calif., June 29, 2005─Maxtor Corporation (NYSE: MXO) announced today it is now shipping the Atlas® family of disk drives, the fastest drives in their class1, with the latest enterprise-class interface technology - Serial Attached SCSI (SAS). The SAS interface allows SAS and SATA disk drives to be configured in the same enclosure, enabling customers to mix and match high-performance Atlas drives with high-capacity MaXLine® SATA drives to meet a broad range of price, performance and capacity requirements.

Press release

News source

Wow, I don't give a shit

 

[Groltz]

Nice.

Now when is Adaptec, etc. going to get off their asses with the host adapter cards??

 

[Pradeep]

Looks like there is a $50 dollar price premium on Atlas II 15K drives, moving from U320 to SAS.

I went with a couple of the U320s. Plus non-availability of any kind of decent range of SAS controllers also played a part.

 

[iGary]

Looks like there is a $50 dollar price premium on Atlas II 15K drives, moving from U320 to SAS.

I went with a couple of the U320s. Plus non-availability of any kind of decent range of SAS controllers also played a part.

ummm... Both the LSI Logic SAS and Adaptec SAS host bus adapters have been available for a couple of weeks (Adaptec for a month).

The LSI Logic 8-port SAS SAS3442X is available for as low as $231. This is a PCI-X model. PCI Express is not available yet.


http://www.8anet.com/merchant.ihtml?pid=1572&lastcatid=89&step=4

• [list:2d8a69bf38]
  
  
  LSI Logic 8-port SAS SAS3442X

[/list:u:2d8a69bf38]

 

[Handruin]

Is that a bulk eSAS out the back?

 

[Pradeep]

ummm... Both the LSI Logic SAS and Adaptec SAS host bus adapters have been available for a couple of weeks (Adaptec for a month).

The LSI Logic 8-port SAS SAS3442X is available for as low as $231. This is a PCI-X model. PCI Express is not available yet.

Ok, I've failed to take my SAS 101. Does that mean I'm limited to 4 drives internally and 4 drives externally? I'm assuming the cable (internal or external) is some kind of 1 to 4 connector?

As a complete OT, got my Atlas IIs from zimzoomfly today. What a refreshing change from the shitehouse drive packaging that newegg does. Each bare drive in antistatic, in it's own little compartment of foam.

 

[Handruin]

LSI technical document

Must be a bulk connector. That doc says two connections, one internal and one external.

This document shows the bulk connection. I kinda like it, too bad it costs so damn much.

 

[Pradeep]

I see some Supermicro SAS enclosures but they all seem to be exclusively for 2.5" drives. I see they have the same controller with 8 internal connections (2*4).

 

[Onomatopoeic]

LSI technical document

Must be a bulk connector. That doc says two connections, one internal and one external.

This document shows the bulk connection.

Yes, it's a 4-lane breakout cable.


You know that you can daisy-chain SAS drives together. Just one SAS channels can take care of up to 127 hard drives. Four internal SAS channels can go a long way.


SAS has more than enough speed and it's full duplex, meaning, that you could easily daisy-chain 5 or 6 of the latest/greatest/fastest 15kRPM SAS hard drives using just one SAS channel and not even tell the difference between this and having each drive on a dedicated SAS channel.

I kinda like it, too bad it costs so damn much.

For what you are getting, US$230-ish is not particularly expensive.

Sooner or later, there will be 4-port internal SAS HBAs available. Those should sell for US$160 ~ $190 or so. Integrated SAS is coming to high-end mobos as well.